Disney’s Tommorowland Movie is not Personal… It’s Just Programming

Tomorrowland is certainly different from pretty much any summer blockbuster ever. It has action, explosions, adventure, suspense, and all the other things you would expect. But it also has a defined, at times even heavy-handed, moral riptide.

I use moral somewhat loosely, however. This is the Disney version of faith, hope, and love. And it has almost nothing at all to do with religion, narrowly defined. Strangely enough, in a movie this preachy, there isn’t even a single mention of Christians. Or a religious believer of any kind, really.

The movie begins rather haltingly with dueling narrators: one is the skeptical curmudgeon Frank Walker (George Clooney) and the other is hopeful dreamer Casey Newton (Britt Robertson). The movie plays out as an extended morality play pitting these two perspectives against one another: one of despair, the other of hope. Despair and hope are figured in the movie as a black and white wolf. Which one wins? Whichever one you feed. Which one wins in the movie? It’s made by Disney, so as you can imagine, the black wolf exited stage right limping and whimpering.

But there’s one thing that is never in question: the world is set to end, and it’s our fault. The only thing that is ever in question here is what we’re going to do about it. We can either give in to despair and let the world die, or we can refuse to believe the end is inevitable and start working toward a solution. Cue all the usual catchphrases: “You just need to believe.” “Don’t let your hope die.” “Trust your heart.” Blah blah Disney.

Don’t get me wrong. There is something refreshing in a movie that seems to have been made by true believers. There is a deadpan optimism running throughout the film that will be refreshing to viewers who have grown tired of our culture’s jaded negativity. But is a blind optimism better than a close-minded despair? That’s the rub.

Tomorrowland is a straight-faced resurrection of the rosy technophilic dream Disney has peddled since the Golden Age of scientific optimism. If you consider the source material for the movie—the Tomorrowland theme attraction—all of this makes sense. The Tomorrowland future was the sleek, clean, safe, flying-car utopia the Jetsons lived in. All that was necessary to get there? A hope in the humanist dream. A true belief in self-realization and progress. Nothing is impossible if the human will and imagination holds out.

If the last few decades have taught us anything, however, the future is not what it used to be. The reason we look into the future and see some version of a dystopia is because the progressive dream of scientific salvation has failed to deliver. Instead of a peaceful, harmonious utopia free from the corruptions of ignorance and vice, more and more we see technology creating additional moral quandaries before it has succeeded in resolving the old ones.

Consequently, most people have grown weary of the humanist program and wary of the humanist dream. Tomorrowland tries to get you to believe again. If only you would believe again, then your belief would be vindicated. Skepticism, it says, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t see the evidence correctly merely because you don’t believe correctly.

I hope you can see that understanding predicated on belief is a firmly religious idea. Augustine famously said, “I believe in order to understand.” Tomorrowland makes largely the same claim, though to decidedly different ends. Tomorrowland wants you to believe in science and human reason. That’s a real problem. You see, science and reason are the epistemological foundations of humanism. And, when used as epistemological foundations, science and reason deny the permissibility and validity of belief.

This is quite a conundrum for the humanist program. It is no longer reasonable. It is no longer able to be believed on the basis of evidence and history. So, on its own terms, it should be rejected. But don’t worry, Disney is here to save the day. It’s here to convince you that there is a kind of magic, wonder, and awe left in science. And that magic has not yet been extinguished.

One of the characters in the movie is an ageless “robot” named Athena (you know, the goddess of wisdom). She seems to represent some version of science. In the end of the movie, the skeptic Frank Walker has a bit of dialogue where he talks about how his view of Athena has changed over the course of his life. He was fooled into loving her as a kid until he realized Athena’s interest in him “wasn’t personal, it was just programming.” By the end of the movie, he has his personal feelings for Athena restored. Sure, she’s a cold, logical, unpredictable machine. But she sure has a heart. Frank says, “I used to think she was nothing more than ones and zeroes. But now I realize she was so much more.” So, what does that mean? You can believe and even love science and reason. They aren’t just cold hard facts. You might have thought that once. But realize that science has a heart. It’s … well … it’s almost like a person.

And with the newly personified Science on its team, humanism is firmly reasserted as a religious alternative. Tomorrowland desperately wants you to confess your faith again in the humanist hope. Reaffirm your religious commitment to the humanist program. Forgive me, but isn’t such blind faith the reason people abandoned religion for science and reason in the first place? If such blind faith is necessary for humanism, what makes it any better than the religions it has rejected (and apparently replaced)? I would say science should only be trusted for scientific reasons—according to science. Which is why science has always been and always will be a flawed epistemological foundation—it can’t support itself without metaphysics after all.

But that’s a problem isn’t it? Climate change deniers don’t believe the world will end. Their lack of action is not necessarily based on apathy concerning an inevitable reality. Climate change deniers actually deny the apocalyptic narrative altogether. In a way, they’re already hopeful that the world won’t end.

In a sense, the people who are convinced that the world is ending—the people who have apparently given in to despair—are the people who agree with the film-makers. Which leads me to the worst problem with this movie: as much as the film-makers try—and oh, how they try—this movie can’t possibly change anyone’s mind. Here’s why.

If you are a climate change denier, contrary to the manifest hopes of these film-makers, you already believe yourself to be a hard-working optimist. You think things need to change as well. You believe that the negative media and the preachers of Armageddon need to be convinced otherwise. You will leave the theater affirmed that you are one of the dreamers. And you need to keep fighting.

If, on the other hand, you are an ardent believer in the imminent end of the world, you too consider yourself a real agent for change. You have faith in hope and change. I mean, you voted for hope and change twice. You trust that, with enough effort, the ignorant can have their eyes opened. You too will leave the theater galvanized to continue on your current path.

So, in the end, Tomorrowland will annoy a few people. But it won’t change anyone’s mind. I guess we couldn’t have expected much different from Disney. They really can’t afford to be all that divisive. They have always been purveyors of contentless optimism and belief to accommodate the maximum variety of core audience member. I even coined a name for their values: imitation value extracts—values without objects and without any restrictive content. Faith, hope, love … For Disney, those mean whatever you want them to mean. It’s just good business.

We can all hope that perhaps eventually people will give up on the humanist dream. It has had enough decades and centuries to prove itself vain, but there will always be those who refuse to be convinced, no matter the evidence. Tragically, these people think we—you know, the incorrectly demarcated religious people—are the ones who are trapped in rosy ignorance. Bless their little bleeding hearts.

This movie feels genuine. It really does inspire the viewer to hope and dream. Hope in what? Dream for what? It won’t say exactly. It was designed to make you feel like you have had an authentic experience at the theater without taking any real risks or demanding any real action.

About the author

Michael Minkoff

Michael Minkoff writes, edits, and typesets from his office in Powder Springs, Georgia. He honestly does not prefer writing about politics, but he sincerely hopes you enjoy reading about it. He also wonders why he is typing this in the third person.